Legends That Every Child Should Know Part 15

"Such is the account given to me by Doctor Paul von Eitzen, with many circ.u.mstantial proofs, and corroborated by certain of my own old acquaintances who saw this same individual with their own eyes in Hamburg.

"In the year 1575 the Secretary Christopher Krause, and Master Jacob von Holstein, legates to the Court of Spain, and afterward sent into the Netherlands to pay the soldiers serving his Majesty in that country, related on their return home to Schleswig, and confirmed with solemn oaths, that they had come across the same mysterious individual at Madrid in Spain, in appearance, manner of life, habits, clothing, just the same as he had appeared in Hamburg. They said that they had spoken with him, and that many people of all cla.s.ses had conversed with him, and found him to speak good Spanish. In the year 1599, in December, a reliable person wrote from Brunswick to Strasburg that the same mentioned strange person had been seen alive at Vienna in Austria, and that he had started for Poland and Dantzig; and that he purposed going on to Moscow. This Ahasverus was at Lubeck in 1601, also about the same date in Revel in Livonia, and in Cracow in Poland. In Moscow he was seen of many and spoken to by many.

"What thoughtful, G.o.d-fearing persons are to think of the said person, is at their option. G.o.d's works are wondrous and past finding out, and are manifested day by day, only to be revealed in full at the last great day of account.

"Dated, Revel, August 1st, 1613.

"D. W.

"D.

"Chrysostomus Duduloeus, "Westphalus."

In 1604 he seems to have appeared in Paris. Rudolph Botoreus says, under this date, "I fear lest I be accused of giving ear to old wives' fables, if I insert in these pages what is reported all over Europe of the Jew, coeval with the Saviour Christ; however, nothing is more common, and our popular histories have not scrupled to a.s.sert it. Following the lead of those who wrote our annals, I may say that he who appeared not in one century only, in Spain, Italy, and Germany, was also in this year seen and recognised as the same individual who had appeared in Hamburg, anno MDLXVI. The common people, bold in spreading reports, relate many things of him; and this I allude to, lest anything should be left unsaid."

J. C. Bulenger puts the date of the Hamburg visit earlier. "It was reported at this time that a Jew of the time of Christ was wandering without food and drink, having for a thousand and odd years been a vagabond and outcast, condemned by G.o.d to rove, because he, of that generation of vipers, was the first to cry out for the crucifixion of Christ and the release of Barabbas; and also because soon after, when Christ, panting under the burden of the rood, sought to rest before his workshop (he was a cobbler), the fellow ordered Him off with acerbity.

Thereupon Christ replied, 'Because thou grudgest Me such a moment of rest, I shall enter into My rest, but thou shalt wander restless.' At once, frantic and agitated, he fled through the whole earth, and on the same account to this day he journeys through the world. It was this person who was seen in Hamburg in MDLXIV. Credat Judaeus Apella! I did not see him, or hear anything authentic concerning him, at that time when I was in Paris."

A curious little book, written against the quackery of Paracelsus, by Leonard Doldius, a Nurnberg physician, and translated into Latin and augmented, by Andreas Libavius, doctor and physician of Rotenburg, alludes to the same story, and gives the Jew a new name nowhere else met with. After having referred to a report that Paracelsus was not dead, but was seated alive, asleep or napping, in his sepulchre at Strasburg, preserved from death by some of his specifics, Labavius declares that he would sooner believe in the old man, the Jew, Ahasverus, wandering over the world, called by some b.u.t.tadaeus, and otherwise, again, by others.

He is said to have appeared in Naumburg, but the date is not given; he was noticed in church, listening to the sermon. After the service he was questioned, and he related his story. On this occasion he received presents from the burgers. In 1633 he was again in Hamburg. In the year 1640, two citizens, living in the Gerberstra.s.se, in Brussels, were walking in the Sonian wood, when they encountered an aged man, whose clothes were in tatters and of an antiquated appearance. They invited him to go with them to a house of refreshment, and he went with them, but would not seat himself, remaining on foot to drink. When he came before the doors with the two burgers, he told them a great deal; but they were mostly stories of events which had happened many hundred years before. Hence the burgers gathered that their companion was Isaac Laquedem, the Jew who had refused to permit our Blessed Lord to rest for a moment at his door-step, and they left him full of terror. In 1642 he is reported to have visited Leipzig. On the 22d July, 1721, he appeared at the gates of the city of Munich. About the end of the seventeenth century or the beginning of the eighteenth, an impostor, calling himself the Wandering Jew, attracted attention in England, and was listened to by the ignorant, and despised by the educated. He, however, managed to thrust himself into the notice of the n.o.bility, who, half in jest, half in curiosity, questioned him, and paid him as they might a juggler. He declared that he had been an officer of the Sanhedrim, and that he had struck Christ as he left the judgment hall of Pilate. He remembered all the Apostles, and described their personal appearance, their clothes, and their peculiarities. He spoke many languages, claimed the power of healing the sick and a.s.serted that he had travelled nearly all over the world. Those who heard him were perplexed by his familiarity with foreign tongues and places. Oxford and Cambridge sent professors to question him, and to discover the imposition, if any. An English n.o.bleman conversed with him in Arabic. The mysterious stranger told his questioner in that language that historical works were not to be relied upon. And on being asked his opinion of Mahomet, he replied that he had been acquainted with the father of the prophet, and that he dwelt at Ormuz. As for Mahomet, he believed him to have been a man of intelligence; once when he heard the prophet deny that Christ was crucified, he answered abruptly by telling him he was a witness to the truth of that event. He related also that he was in Rome when Nero set it on fire; he had known Saladin, Tamerlane, Bajazeth, Eterlane, and could give minute details of the history of the Crusades.

Whether this wandering Jew was found out in London or not, we cannot tell, but he shortly after appeared in Denmark, thence travelled into Sweden, and vanished.

CHAPTER XIII

KING ROBERT OF SICILY

Robert of Sicily, brother of Pope Urbane And Valmond, Emperor of Allemaine, Apparelled in magnificent attire, With retinue of many a knight and squire, On St. John's eve, at vespers, proudly sat And heard the priests chant the Magnificat.

And as he listened, o'er and o'er again Repeated, like a burden or refrain, He caught the words, "_Deposuit potentes De sede, et exaltavit humiles_"; And slowly lifting up his kingly head He to a learned clerk beside him said, "What mean these words?" The clerk made answer meet, "He has put down the mighty from their seat, And has exalted them of low degree."

Thereat King Robert muttered scornfully, "'T is well that such seditious words are sung Only by priests and in the Latin tongue; For unto priests and people be it known, There is no power can push me from my throne!"

And leaning back, he yawned and fell asleep, Lulled by the chant monotonous and deep.

When he awoke, it was already night; The church was empty, and there was no light,

Save where the lamps, that glimmered few and faint, Lighted a little s.p.a.ce before some saint.

He started from his seat and gazed around, But saw no living thing and heard no sound.

He groped toward the door, but it was locked; He cried aloud, and listened, and knocked, And uttered awful threatenings and complaints, And imprecations upon men and saints.

The sounds reechoed from the roof and walls As if dead priests were laughing in their stalls.

At length the s.e.xton, hearing from without The tumult of the knocking and the shout, And thinking thieves were in the house or prayer, Came with his lantern, asking, "Who is there?"

Half choked with rage, King Robert fiercely said, "Open:'tis I, the King! Art thou afraid?"

The frightened s.e.xton, muttering, with a curse, "This is some drunken vagabond, or worse!"

Turned the great key and flung the portal wide; A man rushed by him at a single stride, Haggard, half naked, without hat or cloak, Who neither turned, nor looked at him, nor spoke, But leaped into the blackness of the night, And vanished like a spectre from his sight.

Robert of Sicily, brother of Pope Urbane And Valmond, Emperor of Allemaine, Despoiled of his magnificent attire, Bareheaded, breathless, and besprent with mire, With sense of wrong and outrage desperate, Strode on and thundered at the palace gate;

Rushed through the courtyard, thrusting in his rage To right and left each seneschal and page, And hurried up the broad and sounding stair, His white face ghastly in the torches' glare.

From hall to hall he pa.s.sed with breathless speed; Voices and cries he heard, but did not heed, Until at last he reached the banquet-room, Blazing with light, and breathing with perfume.

There on the dais sat another king, Wearing his robes, his crown, his signet-ring, King Robert's self in features, form, and height, But all transfigured with angelic light!

It was an Angel; and his presence there With a divine effulgence rilled the air, An exaltation, piercing the disguise, Though none the hidden Angel recognised.

A moment speechless, motionless, amazed, The throneless monarch on the Angel gazed, Who met his look of anger and surprise With the divine compa.s.sion of his eyes; Then said, "Who art thou? and why com'st thou here?"

To which King Robert answered with a sneer, "I am the King, and come to claim my own From an impostor, who usurps my throne!"

And suddenly, at these audacious words, Up sprang the angry guests, and drew their swords; The Angel answered, with unruffled brow, "Nay, not the King, but the King's Jester, thou

Henceforth shalt wear the bells and scalloped cape, And for thy counsellor shalt lead an ape; Thou shalt obey my servants when they call, And wait upon my henchmen in the hall!"

Deaf to King Robert's threats and cries and prayers, They thrust him from the hall and down the stairs; A group of t.i.ttering pages ran before, And as they opened wide the folding-door, His heart failed, for he heard, with strange alarms, The boisterous laughter of the men-at-arms, And all the vaulted chamber roar and ring With the mock plaudits of "Long live the King!"

Next morning, waking with the day's first beam, He said within himself, "It was a dream!"

But the straw rustled as he turned his head, There were the cap and bells beside his bed, Around him rose the bare, discolored walls, Close by, the steeds were champing in their stalls, And in the corner, a revolting shape, Shivering and chattering sat the wretched ape.

It was no dream; the world he loved so much Had turned to dust and ashes at his touch!

Days came and went; and now returned again To Sicily the old Saturnian reign; Under the Angel's governance benign The happy island danced with corn and wine, And deep within the mountain's burning breast Enceladus, the giant, was at rest.

Meanwhile King Robert yielded to his fate, Sullen and silent and disconsolate.

Dressed in the motley garb that Jesters wear, With look bewildered and a vacant stare,

Close shaven above the ears, as monks are shorn, By courtiers mocked, by pages laughed to scorn, His only friend the ape, his only food What others left--he still was unsubdued.

And when the Angel met him on his way, And half in earnest, half in jest, would say, Sternly, though tenderly, that he might feel The velvet scabbard held a sword of steel, "Art thou the King?" the pa.s.sion of his woe Burst from him in resistless overflow And, lifting high his forehead he, would fling The haughty answer back, "I am, I am the King!"

Almost three years were ended; when there came Amba.s.sadors of great repute and name From Valmond, Emperor of Allemaine, Unto King Robert, saying that Pope Urbane By letter summoned them forthwith to come On Holy Thursday to his city of Rome.

The Angel with great joy received his guests, And gave them presents of embroidered vests, And velvet mantles with rich ermine lined, And rings and jewels of the rarest kind.

Then he departed with them o'er the sea Into the lovely land of Italy, Whose loveliness was more resplendent made By the mere pa.s.sing of that cavalcade,

With plumes, and cloaks, and housings, and the stir Of jewelled bridle and of golden spur.

And lo! among the menials, in mock state, Upon a piebald steed, with shambling gait, His cloak of fox-tails flapping in the wind, The solemn ape demurely perched behind, King Robert rode, making huge merriment In all the country towns through which they went.

The Pope received them with great pomp and blare Of bannered trumpets, on Saint Peter's square, Giving his benediction and embrace, Fervent, and full of apostolic grace.

While with congratulations and with prayers He entertained the Angel unawares, Robert, the Jester, bursting through the crowd, Into their presence rushed, and cried aloud, "I am the King! Look, and behold in me Robert, your brother, King of Sicily!

This man, who wears my semblance to your eyes, Is an impostor in a king's disguise.

Do you not know me? does no voice within Answer my cry, and say we are akin?"

The Pope in silence, but with troubled mien, Gazed at the Angel's countenance serene; The Emperor, laughing, said, "It is strange sport To keep a madman for thy Fool at court!"

And the poor, baffled Jester in disgrace Was hustled back among the populace.

In solemn state the Holy Week went by, And Easter Sunday gleamed upon the sky; The presence of the Angel, with its light, Before the sun rose, made the city bright,

And with new fervour filled the hearts of men, Who felt that Christ indeed had risen again.

Even the Jester, on his bed of straw, With haggard eyes the unwonted splendour saw, He felt within a power unfelt before, And, kneeling humbly on his chamber-floor, He heard the rushing garments of the Lord Sweep through the silent air, ascending heavenward.

And now the visit ending, and once more Valmond returning to the Danube's sh.o.r.e, Homeward the Angel journeyed, and again The land was made resplendent with his train, Flashing along the towns of Italy Unto Salerno, and from thence by sea.

And when once more within Palermo's wall, And, seated on the throne in his great hall, He heard the Angelus from convent towers, As if the better world conversed with ours, He beckoned to King Robert to draw nigher, And with a gesture bade the rest retire; And when they were alone, the Angel said, "Art thou the King?" Then, bowing down his head, King Robert crossed both hands upon his breast, And meekly answered him: "Thou knowest best!

My sins as scarlet are; let me go hence, And in some cloister's school of penitence, Across those stones, that pave the way to heaven, Walk barefoot, till my guilty soul be shriven!"

The Angel smiled, and from his radiant face A holy light illumined all the place, And through the open window, loud and clear, They heard the monks chant in the chapel near, Above the stir and tumult of the street: "He has put down the mighty from their seat, And has exalted them of low degree!"